


The Kindness Of Strangers

by Avery11



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen, Runaway, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avery11/pseuds/Avery11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the conclusion of a difficult mission, an exhausted Illya encounters a new problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kindness Of Strangers

      

 

 

She kept to the shadows, her thin frame pressed against the filthy brick wall of the building as she edged her way down the alley.  Dead leaves and odd bits of trash skittered about her feet, buffeted by the icy November wind as it blew in off the bay.  It had snowed earlier in the day, and more was predicted for the evening rush hour.  Shivering, the girl clutched the grimy edges of her cotton jacket closer for warmth, wishing for the thousandth time that she'd thought to bring a heavier coat.   _And hat.  Gloves.  Money._

She’d left home the weekend before Labor Day, just two days shy of her sixteenth birthday.  The weather had been pleasantly warm, the breezes balmy with summer’s ending. Running away to the big city had seemed the answer to all her problems, a great adventure.  As she boarded the bus out of Erie Falls, her ticket bought with the last of her summer job money, she felt sophisticated and grown-up, her future filled with exciting possibilities.  School was a drag, and anyway, she was going to be an actress.  A star. You didn’t need a high school diploma to act.  Her parents--well, they were good people, but they just didn’t understand.

In New York, she would get a job on Broadway, have an apartment of her own, live the life she’d always dreamed of having.  She’d be popular, with lots of cool girlfriends to hang out with, and boys lining up all the time to date her.  One day, she’d go back to Erie Falls, successful, wealthy, maybe even famous, and show them how wrong they’d been to doubt her.   _Turns out they were right after all,_ she thought grimly.

She peered into the growing darkness, listening, alert for signs of danger, any indication of trouble.  Stealth, caution, invisibility--these were her friends now, traits ingrained by circumstance into her very nature.   _Blend in.  Talk to no one.   Strangers are not to be trusted_.  She had learned a lot about life in a very short time.

Her stomach rumbled conspicuously, and she took another step forward, drawn by the intoxicating aromas emanating from the vent that connected the alleyway to the pizza parlor around the corner on Flatbush Avenue.  Her mouth watered at the thought of food.  It had been two days since her last meal, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded, faint from hunger.  She approached the rusted metal dumpster at the far end of the alley, caution warring with desperation, willing herself to do whatever it took to find something edible amid the disgusting piles of trash.  Her heart leapt when she saw the leftover slice of pepperoni pizza, and nearly half of a ham and cheese grinder, still in its greasy wax paper wrapper, lying right there near the top of the heap.   _Looks pretty fresh,_ she thought, utterly overcome by hunger.  The need to eat something, anything, outweighed any other consideration.   She reached in, snatching the bounty from the horrid pile, and retreated to a corner of the alley to eat.

She had finished the pizza, and was trying to decide whether to eat the grinder now or save it for later, when her senses abruptly went on high alert.  Something--a sound--had disturbed the silence.  She heard it again.   _Footsteps_ , she realized. _Someone is coming_ _. Someone else_ _is in the alley._   Without conscious thought, she slid her body behind a pile of battered shipping crates, and went still.

The intruder was a young man dressed in the typical clothes of a dock worker: jeans, work boots, turtleneck, and navy pea coat.  A dark knit cap completed the picture, concealing all but a few strands of baby-fine, flaxen hair.  His face was hidden in shadow, but he looked, to all intents and purposes, like all the other dock workers and longshoremen who called the district home.  An average Joe.  Nevertheless, something was off about the guy, she was sure of it.  Nothing she could put her finger on, but he seemed different from the others.   _Not average.  Not at all._

He stumbled over a trash can, but caught himself before he fell.  She heard him swear.   On the fire escape above, a cat yowled at the interruption.  “Shhh,” he said.   “Nice kitty.” He leaned against the wall, rubbing his eyes with the back of one bruised hand, and muttered something in a language she didn’t understand.

 _Exhausted_ , she thought.   _Poor guy can barely stand._  She noted the gash over one eye, the bruise darkening the underside of his pale jaw.  He’s been in a fight.

He searched his pockets, and retrieved something slim and shiny--a pen?

_Why does he need a pen in the middle of a dark alley?_

He twisted something on the object, and did something else to it, and then raised the pen(?) to his lips.  It crackled oddly, like static on the radio.

“Open Channel D.  Kuryakin here.”

“Mr. Kuryakin?  Is that you?  Well, I should think it’s about time.  You do realize that you’ve been off the grid for nearly sixteen hours.”

He winced.  “Yes sir, and I am sorry for the delay.  I had a bit of trouble with some of our feathered friends on the way out, but it has been taken care of.”

“Oh?”

A slight smile curled the corner of his mouth.  “They will cause us no more trouble.”

“I see.”  A soft puffing sound.  “Very well then, Mr. Kuryakin, your report?”

“All copies of Herr Dr. Kreuger’s formula for the nerve gas have been destroyed, sir.  His notes as well.”

“And Thrush’s stockpiles of the gas?”

“Destroyed.”  He allowed himself another small smile.  “Loudly.”

“I expected no less, Mr. Kuryakin.  Mr. Solo reported in some hours ago, and I’m pleased to say that we have Dr. Kreuger and his research team in our custody.  All in all, a very satisfactory affair.”   More puffing.  “Go home and get some rest, Mr. Kuryakin.  Report to me in the morning for your next assignment.”

“Yes sir. Kuryakin out.”  He twisted the silver thing once, twice, and replaced it in the pocket of his jeans.  Illya heaved his tired body away from the wall, stretching to relieve the tension lodged in his shoulders.   _I could go to sleep right here_ , he thought.

The recent mission had been unusually difficult and stressful.  To begin with, he and Napoleon had been apart for much of the time, working separate angles of the same affair, incommunicado and half a world away from one another.  Neither one of them appreciated the separation--it felt awkward and inefficient to work alone, although at one time, each would have relished the solitude.  Now it only increased their mutual anxiety, their profound concern for one another’s well being.

Then there was the explosion on the cargo vessel.  The device he’d planted had been poorly timed--a rare error on his part--and he’d escaped having his atoms scattered all over the universe by only the narrowest of margins. And as if that were not enough trouble for one mission, he had been lured into a protracted battle with several Thrush assassins.  Although he had survived the encounter, and they had not, he was reasonably sure he had a cracked rib to show for his efforts.  
   
_Another little souvenir for my extensive collection._ He rubbed his aching side, wondering if, perhaps, he was a bit off his game.

The truth was, there had been far too many missions of late, and far too many deaths.  Thrush was on the move, and the Section Two agents were scrambling to keep up.  Illya couldn’t recall the last time he’d slept a full eight hours.   He was exhausted beyond words, in body and in soul.

 _Time to go home_.  He turned up his collar against the light snow that threatened to fall, and stumbled, inestimably weary, toward the avenue at the far end of the alley.

Relief flooded through the girl.  He was leaving.  She was safe.   She shifted position amid the tumble of crates and boxes, urging the circulation back into her cramped legs.  A tin can rattled somewhere nearby.

In an instant, the man turned, crouching, his weapon drawn.  “Who is there?”

She froze.

He took several steps toward her, no longer staggering with fatigue, but moving with efficiency and silent purpose, panther-like, dangerous.  The gun was absolutely steady in his hand.  “Come out,” he said.  “Slowly.”

She closed her eyes, waiting for the sound of the gunshot that would end her short and dismal life.

“Do not test my patience.”  His tone was cold as ice, sharp as shards of glass.  “Come out now, and you will not be harmed.”

She rose, trembling, to her feet.

His pale eyes widened at the sight of her.  A young girl, perhaps sixteen years old.   _Not THRUSH.  Innocent.  And he had nearly shot her!_ Hands shaking, he lowered the weapon.  “I am sorry.  I thought you were--someone else.”

“Please let me go, mister.  I didn’t see anything.”

Illya tucked the UNCLE Special into the waistband of his jeans.  He massaged his brow, where a nasty headache had begun to throb.   _A perfect end to a perfectly stellar day._

“Please, mister, I just want to go home.  I won’t tell anyone about your pen, honest.”

Illya’s expression softened.  “You should not be here.  A dark alley is not a safe place to be at night.”

The girl blinked, as if his words made no sense to her.  “Safe?”

“Go home.  You are not safe here.”

Illya stepped back to grant her passage through the narrow alley, but the girl made no move to leave.  Instead, moving in a half-daze, she knelt down, and began to to retrieve the remains of the grinder she had dropped, meat and bread and lettuce flung at random across the pavement.  A small animal of some kind scurried away into the darkness.

“Leave it,” he warned.  “The rats have been at it.”

“It’s mine,” the girl said, and continued to collect limp slices of tomato, slivers of pickle and gnawed off morsels of ham, placing them with great care onto a greasy square of wax paper.

“Didn't you see the rats?  Leave it.  You can get another sandwich.”

For a moment, he thought she might cry.  Instead, her eyes locked defiantly with his.  “It’s mine,” she repeated, daring him to contradict her.  She stuffed the precious package into her pocket, and turned to leave.

 _She’s hungry_ , he realized with a jolt.  Desperately hungry.   _That grinder is all she has to eat._  He was overcome by a sense of outrage, of righteous anger, to think that someone so young could be made to suffer such an indignity.  Where was her family?  Where was society?  Did no one care?

In his mind's eye, he saw a face.  It was the face of a stranger and yet, somehow, it was familiar:

_The woman was incredibly old, even for a Romany peasant.  Her eyes were milky-white and rheumy, hands twisted into arthritic trees from a lifetime of labor.  And in those ancient, gnarled hands, a thick crust of black bread and three shriveled potatoes had appeared.  The entire countryside was starving, and yet she offered him this gift!  She gazed down at him, the wild, scrawny child with the bright blue eyes, and smiled her toothless smile.  Eat, she said in the peculiar dialect of her tribe.  Every child must eat._

_Thank you, babushka.  I shall not forget you._

Illya’s sigh was one of resignation.  Bruised and aching, exhausted beyond words, he longed for a hot shower and a warm bed.  Nevertheless, he knew that those luxuries would have to wait.  There were more important considerations now.

“That grinder must be ice cold,” he observed casually.  “It is probably inedible.  You must let me make it up to you.  I happen to know that the Greek diner across the street serves large, delicious hamburgers. And french fries. And chocolate milkshakes.”

The girl inched her way past him, her eyes shuttered and unreadable.   _I’m not listening._

“Shall we avail ourselves of the local cuisine, you and I?  We have both missed our supper, and I, for one, am very hungry.”

_I’m not hungry I’m not I’m not._

Instinct told Illya that the girl was ready to bolt.  “It is much too cold to be stuck out here in an alley.  Please, let us go someplace warm and I shall try to make amends for ruining your supper.”

The girl hesitated.  Everything she had learned over the past months screamed for her to refuse, to make a break for the safety of the main street, and to run, run until she couldn’t run any more, until she found someplace safe to hide.   _Never, ever_ _trust a stranger._  But she was cold, so cold, and so terribly hungry.  The thought of a hamburger was almost more than she could bear.  “Do they have strawberry?” she asked.

Illya summoned his most charming smile.  “I am sure they do.”  He gestured toward the alley entrance.  “Let us go and find out.”  He took off his pea coat and held it out to the girl.  “Here. Put this on first.  The night is cold.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted it from him, but her fingers were shaking, and the coat fell from her hands.  Illya picked it up and, with exquisite gentleness, eased the girl’s arms through the sleeves, securing the buttons when her half-frozen fingers failed her.  He removed his knit cap and placed it upon her head, tugging the edges well down over her ears.  “We will have a fine supper now,” he said.  “Every child must eat.”

She burrowed into the folds of Illya’s coat, still warm with his body heat.  Her eyes grew drowsy with contentment.

“Better?”

She nodded.  “I’m Trish.”  She slipped her hand quietly into his.

“Illya.”

Wordlessly, gratefully, they left the alley behind.  Under a night sky crisp with stars, they crossed the snow-dusted street to the diner.   The neon sign above the door declared them welcome. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
